The Dark Artifices: Lady Midnight
by MaybeYou'llGetIt.MaybeYouWon't
Summary: The faeries of both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts squirm under their harsh punishment. Mark Blackthorn is an unwilling member of the Wild Hunt, who are causing trouble throughout LA. Meanwhile, Julian and Emma are investigating the intriguing deaths of Emma's parents, five years prior. When one of the most trusted advisors of the Clave is captured, will history be repeated?


**Look at that! An update and two new stories in the space of two days! You all are lucky people. Anywho, this is a prediction fic for Cassandra Clare's new upcoming series, The Dark Artifices.**

**Disclaimer: I own literally nothing, because this isn't even my idea.**

**Occasionally, I'm going to incorporate snippets that Cassie has posted into the story, just to make it more realistic. When one comes about, it'll look like **this. **Enjoy this very Jemma-centric chapter!**

Emma sat on the roof of the Los Angeles Institute, watching the sun set on the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful view, the colors blending together. Emma thought that Julian would love to paint it, but Julian never came here up with her anymore. Her _parabatai _had become increasingly distant over the past few days, and Emma couldn't fathom why.

The trapdoor behind her opened, then shut again.

"Julian? Is that you?" Emma asked hopefully, turning around.

"Nope," Emma's best friend Cristina sunk down beside her. The other girl was wearing gear just as Emma was, but was barefoot. Tina was often barefoot. "Just me."

"Have you seen Jules?" Emma asked, focusing back on the falling sun. She missed her _parabatai _more than she cared to admit, but Tina got it. Back when Tina was ten, she had a _parabatai _named Claire. She had died in a Drevak demon attack at the age of fourteen, and Tina never stopped missing her.

"Not since breakfast. He's still painting in his room, I think." The sun slipped below the horizon and the girls were washed in darkness. "How long has it been?" Emma knew what she meant.

"Three days."

"Good God, Emma! He's your _parabatai_! I refuse to just sit by and let you ignore each other. Go talk to him." She gave Emma a light shove, but Emma stayed put.

"It's weird," was all she said.

"Please. For me?" Emma looked over at Tina, who stuck out her lip and folded her hands, as if praying. Emma caved.

"Fine."

_Knock, knock_.

Julian heard someone outside his bedroom. He had been painting for a while, but his room had no windows, so he had no idea how long. His current canvas lay mostly empty at the moment, save for a few strokes. The ground behind him was littered with mess-ups. Julian had been attempting to paint Emma, but when you see something every day, you don't really notice the little things. He got up to answer the door, and found Emma standing in the hallway.

Inwardly, he cursed. The reason he had retreated to his room was to keep away from her, but she had found him regardless. Some part of him knew she would come anyway.

"Hey, Jules," she said, brushing hair behind her ear. He leaned against the door frame, attempting to appear nonchalant.

"What'cha need?"

"I—well, um..." Emma stuttered. "You know that you've been painting all day, right?"

Julian did a double take.

"_All day?_" He spluttered.

"Yeah,"

Julian took the opportunity of the semi-awkward silence to study Emma. She had her hair braided as usual, but a few strands escaped and were plastered to her forehead, evidence of the day's training. Her eyes were trained on something behind him. Today she wore a simple black tank top and gear pants, both of which accentuated her curves nicely. At this thought, Julian felt like banging his head against the wall. Noticing these sort of things would get him nowhere in life. She was his _parabatai_, and therefore nothing else. The scar along her right arm was noticeable, something she was always self-conscious about. Julian, on the other hand, found it to be the most beautiful thing about her. Better than her sunbeam hair, her glowing skin, her alluring figure...

"What are you staring at?"

And her hothead temper.

"I—" Now it was Julian's turn to stutter. "You have dirt on your face." He told her lamely. It was true, though; she had a smear of dirt across her left cheek. Emma rubbed the back of her hand across her face, but that just smeared it even more. "Just—stop, you're making it worse." Julian laughed. "I'll do it."

The next thing that happened was completely spontaneous. He licked the pad of his thumb and drug it along the dirt, clearing it away. Julian didn't know if that would be taken as sexual, but Emma closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, he was staring intensely at her, waiting for a reaction.

"Thanks," she said, but her voice held something different to it.

"Don't mention it." Julian replied, and another silence ensued.

"Have you been avoiding me?" Emma asked eventually, and Julian's face felt hot.

"No," he replied. "I've just been—painting."

"Painting _what_, exactly?" Emma peered behind him again. The canvas he was currently working on had only an indistinguishable black blob near the bottom—Emma's shirt-to-be—and the obvious shape of a pair of eyes just above the middle.

"Nothing, nothing." Julian said idly, his cheeks tinged pink. Emma disregarded him and pushed her way into his room. She stood in front of the painting with a hand on her hip.

"Who is it?" She looked up at him, still standing in the doorway. A smile played across her lips. "Did you finally decide to paint your dear _parabatai_?"

Julian grinned sheepishly. "Yeah."

"You had better do me good," Emma said, and Julian was momentarily distracted by her choice of words.

"Of course," he told her. "Anything else you want?"

"Just stopped by to make sure you were still living," Her tone was light and flippant, but there was worry in her eyes. "All good?"

Julian just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Her dark blue eyes were always intense, analyzing you, staring you down, but tonight they seemed double what they usually were, drawing every little secret Julian had ever kept from her to the tip of his tongue.

"Well, I'd best be going, then." Emma walked toward the door, shooting him a pleading look over her shoulder. She wanted to stay and talk, but Julian needed to be away from her.

"Okay," He said hoarsely. "Bye." She shut the door behind her. Julian put his back up against it, and slid to the floor, head in his hands. What on earth was he going to do about this?

The Spiral Labyrinth was dark, its maze-like corridors winding off into oblivion. The only light came from a single torch burning in a bracket outside the Records room. The last of the warlocks had left for the night, save for Tessa, who wasn't really a warlock anyway. She was walking the halls, careful to look around every corner, when she spotted the torch. Frowning to herself, she walked toward it. Normally, torches of warlock magic burned in the brackets, but this one appeared to be ordinary, one might even goes as far as to call it _mundane_. Tessa moved past it into the Records room.

The Records room was dark, but light seeped under the shelves of odd objects and documents from another mundane torch. This was all too strange. Tessa reached in her pocket for the small blade she kept with her, and disguised herself to have blond hair and dark blue eyes. She advanced toward the second torch, moving slowly and holding up the dagger defensively. A hand closed around her arm and she screamed. It bounced off the walls and something hit her head. The last thing she saw was a pair of eyes, ones without irises or whites. Just pure black eyes.

**Ha! A cliffy! MWAHAHAHAHA! **

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